Obituaries

Longtime pundit and Chicago Sun-Times columnist Robert Novak, 78, has died after battling brain cancer.

He wasn't the smartest guy that ever lived, but he was certainly one of the most nattily dressed.

Unlike most pundits out there, Novak actually had a career as a reporter:

Robert David Sanders Novak, 78, was born and raised in Joliet and his first newspaper jobs were with the Joliet Herald-News and, while a student at the University of Illinois, the Champaign-Urbana Courier. Novak maintained a lifelong tie to the University of Illinois with the school creating the Robert D. Novak chair of Western Civilization and Culture in 2001.

Mrs. Novak said that her husband passed away at 4:30 a.m., returning home after being hospitalized between July 10 and July 24. Novak’s malignant brain tumor was discovered July 27, 2008.

The Sun-Times has reposted an column Novak wrote last September about living with his disease:

The first sign that I was in trouble came on Wednesday, July 23, when my 2004 black Corvette struck a pedestrian on 18th Street in downtown Washington while I was on my way to my office.

I did not realize I had hit anyone until a shirt-sleeved young man on a bicycle, whom I incorrectly thought to be a bicycle messenger, jumped in front of my car to block the way. In fact, he was David A. Bono, a partner in the high-end law firm Harkins Cunningham. The bicyclist was shouting at me that I could not just hit people and then drive away. That was the first I knew about the accident. Bono called the police, and a patrolman soon arrived.

After I said I had no idea I had hit anyone until they flagged me down and informed me, Bono told the Washington Post, "I would not believe that."

Fortunately, the investigating officer, P. Garcia, was a policeman who listened and apparently believed me. While Bono and other bystanders were taking on aspects of a mob, shouting "hit-and-run," Garcia issued a right-of-way infraction against me, costing me $50, instead of a hit-and-run violation that would have been a felony. Following Garcia's instructions, I promptly paid the $50 fine at Third District Police Headquarters in Northwest Washington, in cash and in person.

Garcia's justification in believing me was soon confirmed by the diagnosis of my brain cancer, in which I have lost not only left peripheral vision but nearly all my left vision, probably permanently. Several people have asked me whether the person I hit was crossing in front of me on my left. I answer, "I never saw him."

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Former South Korean president Kim Dae-jung, 83, of heart failure.

Miscellaneous News.

Robert Novak has retired due to his "dire" brain tumor diagnosis. He is getting treatment for the disease.
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A man pleads guilty in the ricin case.
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Miscellaneous News from All Over

The White House continues to smear Joseph Wilson.
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When you act as your own attorney, don't expect judges to rule in your favor.
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A Sparks, Nevada, couple with 12 kids, 11 of whom are adopted, have received donations after word got out their home was about to be foreclosed. One of the donors is well-known painter Sean Scully.
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The Obama supporters' campaign against Larry Sinclair is in full force as his current website has been shut down.

More details are here.

And there's this:

This is my last post. Host Monster, the server where I had moved the blog www.larrysinclair0926.com to has deleted the site from their servers and will not host my web site any longer. Host Monster explained to me that they will cooperate with me and Mr. Sibley and provide Mr. Sibley with all information on those who visited the site and all attempts made to access the files and controls on the site. I am faxing the release authorization as I type this. Host Monster states that they do not wish to continue to Host my site as they have spent more time on complaints in the short period of time I was on that server than they have in the time they have been in business.

Host Monster stated it is not worth the harassment and resources expended.

Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the “Barack Obama’s US of A”

I will end this post with a thought, if what I have said is untrue, then why is it that every blog and web site I have had has been attacked and the servers pressured into shutting them down? Why has so much time, effort and money been put into threatening, attacking me and my family? Why is it that Barack Obama does not have the guts to say I am lying?

He just said on the Roger Fredinburg show he is getting a new server and expects to be back up in about a week.
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There's one more Republican we need to throw out of the Senate.

Coburn's been nicknamed "Dr. No."
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So why has there been a recent wave of triathlete deaths?
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It's no surprise there were violations in hiring in the Justice Department.
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It's very sad news for columnist Bob Novak, 77. He has been diagnosed with a brain tumor.

Miscellaneous News

I went to Great Basin National Park last year and posted some pictures of Lehmann Cave, which was a great tour; the person was very knowledgeable. If I ever get the conversion equipment to digitalize the video 8 of the tour, I'd like to post it here.

Here are some pictures of the park.

The remoteness of the park, just a few miles from the Utah border and some 70 or so miles east of Ely, makes it one of the least visited of all the national parks. But it's really pretty.

I hope to be back in the near future.
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Note to trolls: If you start giving me a rash of shit about the Sinclair story, you will have your posts deleted, and deleted, and deleted. I won't take that bullying shit here.

I have said I am on the fence about his allegations, but the over-the-top, illegal antics of so-called Obama supporters against him are pushing me to believe his original allegations.
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Man, it is sure fun and games to ridicule the so-called "fat."

Can you imagine somebody putting a computer game up bashing blacks or Jews? Or even the disabled?

Sure, people should find it funny.
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Add running into pedestrians to Bob Novak's list of sins.
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One of my favorite blogs out there is one devoted to classic television, Classic Television Showbiz. I thought I'd post the link to a series of YouTubes of an old Tom Snyder Tomorrow Show broadcast featuring one of the sleaziest biographers of all time, the late, ungreat Albert Goldman (1927-1994). This interview came out at the time Goldman published his absolutely shitty biography of Elvis Presley, and the sleazeball insisted the audience had to leave the studio when he came on. He was a total shitbag. Slime just drips off of him. The viewer needs to take a shower after watching him. Goldman had a thinly-veiled envy for Presley. He claimed Presley had a low I.Q., which was just a stupid comment on its face. What his remark did was disguise his contempt for Elvis, who, with just a high school education, did more in his life than 99.9999999999...percent of all of the people in the world who had far greater education. That's what pissed off this useless shitbag Goldman. Furthermore, Elvis was from the South, and how dare a poor southerner actually have a huge influence on popular culture. Goldman had much the same regional contempt for Elvis as the Beltway media mob had for Bill Clinton. Elvis had no pretensions, yet he was one of the few people who actually made this world a better place. This was just too much for somebody like Goldman, who made his living leeching off the dead, since he couldn't cut it as an academic.

I remember an interview he gave I believe on KGO radio at around this time shitting all over Elvis Presley. At that point he was working on a biography of John Lennon, and as I remember it, Goldman was actually bragging up Lennon while continuing to shit all over Elvis. He made a contrast between how good Lennon was and how shitty Elvis was.

Well, we know how all of THAT turned out. Goldman's 1988 book about John Lennon was even worse than his sleaze job on Elvis. Goldman was hard at work on a hit job on Jim Morrison, but the Lizard King got his revenge and was spared as Goldman died en route to London. The book was never finished.

According to Wikipedia, Goldman had a daughter but never married the mother. A great guy all around.
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Can a Broken Clock

be right twice a day?

Robert Novak does have a few points about Obama:

Obama and his advisers know better. Though he revealed political inexperience by thinking that what he said in San Francisco would stay in San Francisco, he is savvy enough to apologize profusely for "gaffes" and "errors." But he considers his blunder one of style, not substance. Actually, while seeming to be anti-gun or anti-church is self-destructive for a candidate, even raising Frank's thesis is dangerous.

The trick for Obama is to distance himself from the rhetoric while holding to the theory, as restructured in last week's debate: "Yes, [the American people] are in part frustrated and angry" by "manufactured" issues. Indeed, he said, beating "to death" this issue is "not helping that person . . . trying to figure out how to pay the bills at the end of the month."

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Bullshit Bob

peddles more goddamned bullshit about John Edwards in an attempt to talk him down and wreck his chances for the nomination.

There will NEVER be an AG job for John Edwards, for if he is not the nominee, Democrats won't win the White House. Period.

It is far more likely Obama will be defending himself in court. Edwards is not a defense attorney.